I am sending this to you because I truly respect your opinion and feel it has
important value to many.

Below is a petition pertaining to the current media smear being engaged
against the late, great Tim Leary. If you agree to the statement, please let
me know, and I will include you on the list. Further, please pass this
around to others who you feel have the importance to transmit the message
that the current portrayal of Mr. Leary as an informant is not only false but
intentionally malicious.

FBI AND MEDIA KICK A MAN WHILE HE'S DEAD: An Open Letter from the Friends of
Timothy Leary

"Those who want to gnaw on his bones never knew his heart" --Ken Kesey

"He stood up bravely for freedom of speech and behavior and deserves to be
remembered for that" --Winona Ryder

Recent media coverage about Timothy Leary's "cooperation" with the FBI
brings into focus the Orwellian character of today's tabloid media
environment.

Focusing on documents selectively released by the FBI, and initially
published by the "true crime" webzine, The Smoking Gun, a news story picked
up by the Associated Press presented as shocking news the fact that Leary
testified about the radical left in 1974 in the hopes of speeding up his
prison release. Young readers, or those with a short historical memory, were
led to believe that Leary was a secret FBI collaborator, hiding behind a
mask of countercultural anti-authoritarianism.
We refer the Associated Press and all other conscientious reporters to
newspapers and periodicals from this period. We also refer them to the final
chapters (39-41) of Leary's own autobiography, Flashbacks (Tarcher/Putnam,
1983). Leary found his interaction with the Feds important enough to make it
the closing chapter. He was certainly aware that it was no secret.
Trumpeting the fact that Leary answered the agency's questions as "news" is
utterly dishonest.

"I feel my neurons perking up and snapping to attention as the fog of
mass-media disinformation turns to high-definition clarity" --Susan Sarandon

Journalists who wish to investigate this situation further will be rewarded
with a complex adventure story of a heroic man whose rights were
consistently violated by various government agencies, who served 4-1/2 harsh
years in prison and another 1-1/2 years in exile, and who finally evaded
several lifetimes' worth of further prison sentences while doing negligible
damage to friends and acquaintances.

"For those whose image of Dr. Leary has been formed by shallow and often
malicious reports in the press..." --Tom Robbins

Here are a few salient facts:
* Timothy Leary faced about 100 years in prison. Twenty years were for a
total of less than half an ounce of marijuana; another five for escaping
from prison. That alone would have put him away for the rest of his life.
But in addition, he faced 75 years on some bizarre conspiracy charges around
global distribution of LSD. Of his thirty "co-conspirators," twenty-nine
were unfamiliar to him, and conspiracy charges were eventually dropped. In
contrast, the leaders of the Weather Underground received fines and
suspended sentences when they finally turned themselves in, due to the
disclosure that the FBI had committed illegal acts against them.
* Nobody was seriously injured by Leary's interaction with the FBI, with the
exception of a former attorney, who received three months in prison after
being set up on a cocaine bust by a girlfriend of Leary working on the
outside, not from Tim's testimony. The lawyer has never come forward to
express any anger toward Leary. Two other former lawyers of Leary were
placed at risk, as were his estranged wife and his archivist, but nothing
came of it because of the absence of corroborating testimony from people who
Tim well knew had been underground for years.
* The Weather Underground, the radical left organization responsible for his
escape, was not impacted by his testimony. Histories written about the
Weather Underground usually mention the Leary chapter in terms of the escape
for which they proudly took credit. Leary sent information to the Weather
Underground through a sympathetic prisoner that he was considering making a
deal with the FBI and waited for their approval. The return message was "we
understand."
* While in exile, Leary was illegally kidnapped by US agents in Afghanistan
(which had no extradition treaty with the U.S.) and brought back to America.
On returning to prison, he was thrown into "the hole" in Folsom Prison. His
bail was five million dollars, the largest in U.S. history. President
Richard Nixon had earlier labeled him "the most dangerous man in America."
* When Leary first agreed to talk to the FBI about those involved in his
escape, the agents were so dissatisfied with his testimony that they put him
out on the "main line" at a Minnesota prison under the name "Charles
Thrush," a songbird. This was a blatant attempt to label him a snitch and
get him murdered by prisoners, or at least to scare him into giving the FBI
the kind of answers they wanted.
* After his testimony, Leary remained in prison for close to two years.

His release had as much to do with Nixon's downfall over the Watergate
scandal, the fact that the FBI had been exposed for illegal activities
against radical groups, and the transition from Ronald Reagan to Jerry Brown
as governor of California, as it did with any useful information the FBI
might have received from him.

There are lots of FBI files on Tim Leary. The government has released a
select number of them, which were clearly chosen to hurt his reputation. The
FBI is still doing its best to slow down the release of Leary's full file,
according to investigators who have made Freedom of Information Act
requests.
*
"Tim was a Chieftain. He stomped on the terra, and he left his elegant hoof
prints on all our lives." --Hunter S. Thompson

"Tim knew he had to make the same sort of rollover when he was in the belly
of the beast. He also knew he wasn't telling the Feds anything they didn't
already know. And he figured it the same way I did: our true allies and
comrades would understand.

I have no need to associate with doubters. When the priests in the Star
Chamber promise to stop pouring hot lead in your ear if you'll confess to
being in league with Satan, you do what you have to do. Those citizens who
think you are being a traitorous coward have never had hot lead poured in
their ears.

Tim Leary was a great warrior, funny and wise and clever and, above all,
courageous. I judge myself blessed to have battled alongside a revolutionary
like this blue-eyed battler. Those who want to gnaw on his bones never knew
his heart"
--Ken Kesey